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Re: Of Freemasons, Flat Earth and Steampunk

Originally Posted by Lord Torath

A quick DuckDuckGo search provides many "Snowball Earth" hits (theory that Earth at one point circa 650 million years ago was completely covered by ice), but nothing showing the Great Ice Ball Flat Earth theory. I'm going to assume it's satire.

There is also a creationist ad-hoc explanation for the "waters above" based on Earth being completely enveloped in ice that they use to explain how people used to live to 600 years old because of the increased atmospheric pressure.

I find it a good starting point in any discussion regarding creationism: if they don't see a problem with the above paragraph, there is no point in trying to talk to the individual.

Grey Wolf

My Motto:

Forum Motto:

There is a world of imagination
Deep in the corners of your mind
Where reality is an intruder
And myth and legend thrive

Originally Posted by The Giant & Yendor

GIANT IN THE PLAYGROUND: On a saner forum,
there wouldn't have been such speculation.

Re: Of Freemasons, Flat Earth and Steampunk

I wonder how many IQ points I lost just looking at that picture. That looks like something the Lords of Chaos (The Eternal Champion Series, NOT Warhammer 40K) would come up with just to screw with people.

Member of the Giants in the Playground Forum Chapter for the Movement to Reunite Gondwana!

Re: Of Freemasons, Flat Earth and Steampunk

Originally Posted by HandofShadows

I wonder how many IQ points I lost just looking at that picture. That looks like something the Lords of Chaos (The Eternal Champion Series, NOT Warhammer 40K) would come up with just to screw with people.

The Flat Earthers don't want you to know about the other worlds on the giant iceball!

Re: Of Freemasons, Flat Earth and Steampunk

The Flat Earthers don't want you to know about the other worlds on the giant iceball!

Don't forget that the iceball is flat and infinite.

I prefer science fiction to fantasy, and generally play in the former genre. Due to this, I generally expect the laws of physics to apply to games, and work from that perspective.

Spoiler: playground quotes

Show

Originally Posted by Zelphas

So here I am, trapped in my laboratory, trying to create a Mechabeast that's powerful enough to take down the howling horde outside my door, but also won't join them once it realizes what I've done...twentieth time's the charm, right?

Originally Posted by Lord Raziere

How about a Jovian Uplift stuck in a Case morph? it makes so little sense.

Re: Of Freemasons, Flat Earth and Steampunk

Originally Posted by GreatWyrmGold

I now have a new idea for a campaign setting.

I know right. I had a similar idea once. An icy world with lots of circles, some overlapping, each lit by a "sun" on a pole. The poles are actually ancient starships, with their engines re-purposed to give heat and light. You get some nice evocative place names like "the desert of five shadows" for an area cooked dry by five sun poles.

Originally Posted by wumpus

There was a company pushing this idea called escape dynamics. It is simply impossible to "heat to higher exhaust velocity than a chemical propellant" simply because modern chemical rockets are already limited by the heat of the propellant. If the "themal chamber" has to be hotter than the propellant, no further gains are possible.

The *real* advantage is using hydrogen as a propellant. It is the ideal exhaust product (having the highest exhaust velocity for any temperature) but not available for chemical exhaust (engines that burn hydrogen and oxygen typically run "fuel rich" to both cool the exhaust product down to avoid melting but also to salt the output with more hydrogen to increase efficiency. Expect ISPs to start around 800 (for those unfamiliar with rocket science, those numbers are in the "magic" range and likely enough for Single Stage to Orbit).

If I had such a beast, I'd look strongly into using both water and hydrogen. Start with water (Isp probably around 300) simply to have a smaller rocket (hydrogen's lack of density is outrageous, even in liquid form). Expect the laser/microwave/whatever to be so inefficient that cost of water/hydrogen simply isn't a consideration, but having a wildly more compact spacecraft would justify the water on its own.

This might as well be a 22nd century tech (and there is a good chance that space elevators will happen first and obsolete the idea), and don't expect one any time soon. I suspect Escape Dynamics was expecting the US Navy's laser programs to come along faster, they are probably the main issue in such tech (and while they may supply enough power, they really only care about doing so for milliseconds or less).

Re: Of Freemasons, Flat Earth and Steampunk

I'm inclined to agree, but others believe differently. Since that's a matter of opinion, not fact, we should respect their right to respect ridiculous beliefs.

Originally Posted by Grey_Wolf_c

There is also a creationist ad-hoc explanation for the "waters above" based on Earth being completely enveloped in ice that they use to explain how people used to live to 600 years old because of the increased atmospheric pressure.
I find it a good starting point in any discussion regarding creationism: if they don't see a problem with the above paragraph, there is no point in trying to talk to the individual.
Grey Wolf

There really is no end to the crazy stuff certain ideologies inspire from their millennia-old, poetic descriptions of reality being taken as fact.

I'm the GWG from Bay12 and a bunch of other places.

Originally Posted by The Blade Wolf

Ah, thank you very much GreatWyrmGold, you obviously live up to that name with your intelligence and wisdom with that post.

Re: Of Freemasons, Flat Earth and Steampunk

Originally Posted by GreatWyrmGold

There really is no end to the crazy stuff certain ideologies inspire from their millennia-old, poetic descriptions of reality being taken as fact.

I don't think it was poetic, I think they really believed it just like today's nutters. People in the ancient world were necessarily ignorant even if they were clever by nature because there was so little known in those days, and even so only a very few were able to learn any appreciable portion of it (much less build upon it) because they were too busy dying of famine, wars, and disease.

Re: Of Freemasons, Flat Earth and Steampunk

Originally Posted by Bohandas

I don't think it was poetic, I think they really believed it just like today's nutters. People in the ancient world were necessarily ignorant even if they were clever by nature because there was so little known in those days, and even so only a very few were able to learn any appreciable portion of it (much less build upon it) because they were too busy dying of famine, wars, and disease.

With that said - a lot of the ancient "flat" earths were still depicted with curvature (e.g. the turtles back type), just not enough to wrap all the way back around to a sphere.

If I can introduce people to concepts which let them admit that the Bible isn't literally true without having to compromise their deep-set assumptions about the world, they might feel less pressured to agree with Biblical literalists. I'm speaking from experience--back in the day, I cared deeply about any theory or interpretation which made my faith clash less with reality.
Its not likely to affect anyone and won't affect many, but if enough people do it it would make a difference. And if I wish everyone would do it, I should do it, no?

Last edited by GreatWyrmGold; 2017-12-02 at 05:54 PM.
Reason: Oh crud, I forgot to actually finish that sentence...

I'm the GWG from Bay12 and a bunch of other places.

Originally Posted by The Blade Wolf

Ah, thank you very much GreatWyrmGold, you obviously live up to that name with your intelligence and wisdom with that post.

Re: Of Freemasons, Flat Earth and Steampunk

Just so we are clear. Today's flat earther in much base the beliefs on something a small minority may have believed in at some point. The guy who is one of the more famous medieval flat earth ppl was considered a ridculous crackpot idiot back in his time when everyone who cared about such things knew the earth was in fact round.

The more we've bene able to prove this stuff, the more people are now disbelieveing, per capita speaking basically. Maddening really.

Re: Of Freemasons, Flat Earth and Steampunk

Based on the Facebook group size, I guess I'd put the lower bound at about 1 in 100000 people, and more realistically about 1 in 10000 in English speaking countries since the Facebook group isn't likely to be indicative of the non-English speaking international community.

Re: Of Freemasons, Flat Earth and Steampunk

Originally Posted by LordEntrails

Your basis for such a statement? It appears factual in your basis, so should be easy to prove if indeed it is factual.

It's more easily proved that a flat earth...

People in the medieaval age did not believe in a flat earth. The idea basically comes from one crazy monk who made a diagram of the world that he was trying to squeeze into the shape of a tabernacle or some such. That seems to be the basis for "medieaval people thougth the world was flat". Most of course did not ever spend much effort considering one way or another because it wasn't important in their lives. Of actual scholars and educated people most knew the world was round. The old Greek authorities had proved it after all and all the merchants travelling with portolans could see it in action. The number of people having an opinion the shape of the world was very small, education being something most were not privy to. I'm willing to be on there being today more flatearthers than medieaval scholars who knew the correct answer.

Either way the point is, people with much less sophisticated ways to measure the earth came to the correct understanding. Depsite as has been mentioned being "stupider" since there was less knowledge. Yet today with a massively better ability to prove how the earth looks we (still) have a sizeable mass who at least claims to not believe in this. Very strange.

Re: Of Freemasons, Flat Earth and Steampunk

Originally Posted by snowblizz

It's more easily proved that a flat earth...

People in the medieaval age did not believe in a flat earth. The idea basically comes from one crazy monk who made a diagram of the world that he was trying to squeeze into the shape of a tabernacle or some such. That seems to be the basis for "medieaval people thougth the world was flat". Most of course did not ever spend much effort considering one way or another because it wasn't important in their lives. Of actual scholars and educated people most knew the world was round. The old Greek authorities had proved it after all and all the merchants travelling with portolans could see it in action. The number of people having an opinion the shape of the world was very small, education being something most were not privy to. I'm willing to be on there being today more flatearthers than medieaval scholars who knew the correct answer.

Either way the point is, people with much less sophisticated ways to measure the earth came to the correct understanding. Depsite as has been mentioned being "stupider" since there was less knowledge. Yet today with a massively better ability to prove how the earth looks we (still) have a sizeable mass who at least claims to not believe in this. Very strange.

As an aside, regardless of enforced dogma at different times through history, it'd be impossible to convince anyone from communities by the ocean or at high altitudes that the Earth is flat, since you can pretty clearly tell that it's not.

Re: Of Freemasons, Flat Earth and Steampunk

Originally Posted by snowblizz

The more we've bene able to prove this stuff, the more people are now disbelieveing, per capita speaking basically. Maddening really.

We've been able to prove that the Earth is round ever since we advanced enough, as a species, to care. Spreading knowledge of the Earth's shape had less to do with proving that the Earth was round, and more to do with getting people to care enough to listen to your proofs. This got easier over time, as reasons to care about the world beyond your farm or your lord's fiefdom increased. People cared about the shape of the world, and listened to evidence, and trusted, and understood. So it was with science in general.
It seems like that's changed lately. There seems to be a backlash against the rapid change of the past few decades or past century, both technologically and culturally. People want to believe things can and should go back to something familiar, and "proving" science wrong is just one way of doing so. Or maybe they're worried about something important to them losing relevance in the future, and want to be able to prove that it's right in every way and new changey stuff is wrong. Or maybe they just don't like how uncontrolled the world is, and want to believe in a conspiracy to hide the shape of the Earth because it lets them think someone is in control. Maybe it's all of that. Maybe it's none of it. But it's something.

I'm the GWG from Bay12 and a bunch of other places.

Originally Posted by The Blade Wolf

Ah, thank you very much GreatWyrmGold, you obviously live up to that name with your intelligence and wisdom with that post.

Re: Of Freemasons, Flat Earth and Steampunk

Originally Posted by NichG

Based on the Facebook group size, I guess I'd put the lower bound at about 1 in 100000 people, and more realistically about 1 in 10000 in English speaking countries since the Facebook group isn't likely to be indicative of the non-English speaking international community.

Not sure where to get detailed medieval statistics though.

Ah, even your contemporary statistics and your reasoning for them are unscientific and nothing but speculation.

Originally Posted by snowblizz

Either way the point is, people with much less sophisticated ways to measure the earth came to the correct understanding. Depsite as has been mentioned being "stupider" since there was less knowledge. Yet today with a massively better ability to prove how the earth looks we (still) have a sizeable mass who at least claims to not believe in this. Very strange.

What's this sizeable number? 10?

Originally Posted by GreatWyrmGold

...
It seems like that's changed lately. There seems to be a backlash against the rapid change of the past few decades or past century, both technologically and culturally. ...

Or people just want to feel different. Or be known for something and they really don't care what they say that sets them apart? "I want to be unique! Just like everyone else."

[All]
Or perhaps modern technology allows people to be more aware of the fringe and their beliefs/statements/behaviors/etc?

Re: Of Freemasons, Flat Earth and Steampunk

Originally Posted by Bohandas

I don't think it was poetic, I think they really believed it just like today's nutters. People in the ancient world were necessarily ignorant even if they were clever by nature because there was so little known in those days, and even so only a very few were able to learn any appreciable portion of it (much less build upon it) because they were too busy dying of famine, wars, and disease.

Of course, you are entitled to believe whatever you wish, specially about these kind of factoids that truly don't affect anything in our modern lives; but still your statement is questionable, at best. Given that parables and allegories are a thing in written history since Plato (and even prophets and monks of different religions were known to use them); it's very hard to support the idea that the cosmogony/cosmology of ancient times wasn't in fact one huge allegory to picture a version of reality that wasn't truly understood to be put in plain descriptive language. Unless, of course, you believe Plato was crazy enough to believe we all came from the same cave...

Re: Of Freemasons, Flat Earth and Steampunk

Originally Posted by LordEntrails

What's this sizeable number? 10?

Frankly I neither know nor care. But apparently there is a whole society of them somewhere. I have no desire to get within thinking distance of the crazy that is the flatearthers. I guess you could count the number of backers the steam rocket man got and call that a bare minimum. Some woulda just done it just to see him blow up but equally ppl who would have supported him if they'd known about it haven't so it balances out.

Re: Of Freemasons, Flat Earth and Steampunk

People who claim to believe that the world is flat number in the hundreds to thousands, just going by what I've seen of English speakers, but it's unclear how many of them are sincere and how many are trolling. There seems to be at least one true believer out there (which, as snowblizz states is one too many).

Now, believing the Earth is flat is different to believing that Geoff, the man who lives in the center of the Earth, made the universe. Mainly because the first has been objectively proven incorrect using several experiments (without leaving the surface of the planet even), while the second, while unlikely, doesn't have any actual evidence going against it.

Although, honestly, I've discovered flat earthers to be significantly more annoying than religious people. The places I tend to be tend to be where religious people don't practice 'loud' evangelism, and instead hope that if they're good people and you're free to talk about it you might come around. Flat earthers, partially because they seem to have a high percentage of trolls, seem to have no equivalent.

So, despite the fact that I believe one sincere believer in the flat earth is too many, if said believer didn't actually try to convert me and just lived their life as normal I wouldn't actually care. Sure, their belief is objectively wrong (at least to the limits of my knowledge), but it's not affecting me.

I prefer science fiction to fantasy, and generally play in the former genre. Due to this, I generally expect the laws of physics to apply to games, and work from that perspective.

Spoiler: playground quotes

Show

Originally Posted by Zelphas

So here I am, trapped in my laboratory, trying to create a Mechabeast that's powerful enough to take down the howling horde outside my door, but also won't join them once it realizes what I've done...twentieth time's the charm, right?

Originally Posted by Lord Raziere

How about a Jovian Uplift stuck in a Case morph? it makes so little sense.

Re: Of Freemasons, Flat Earth and Steampunk

I love it.

“Evil is evil. Lesser, greater, middling, it's all the same. Proportions are negotiated, boundaries blurred. I'm not a pious hermit, I haven't done only good in my life. But if I'm to choose between one evil and another, then I prefer not to choose at all.”

Re: Of Freemasons, Flat Earth and Steampunk

Originally Posted by pendell

Meanwhile, according to his facebook page , it looks like the next launch will be 3 Feb. I hope he comes back alive.

Respectfully,

Brian P.

Well, I'm at the same time glad he's following his steam powered rocket dream and dreading the fact that so many thing could go wrong. I too hope he comes back alive, and that he's managed to come up with a way to regulate the acceleration enough that it'll be everything else that is the danger (even if that might affect his flight).

I prefer science fiction to fantasy, and generally play in the former genre. Due to this, I generally expect the laws of physics to apply to games, and work from that perspective.

Spoiler: playground quotes

Show

Originally Posted by Zelphas

So here I am, trapped in my laboratory, trying to create a Mechabeast that's powerful enough to take down the howling horde outside my door, but also won't join them once it realizes what I've done...twentieth time's the charm, right?

Originally Posted by Lord Raziere

How about a Jovian Uplift stuck in a Case morph? it makes so little sense.